All HPX applications can be configured using special command line options and/or using special configuration files. This section describes the available options, the configuration file format, and the algorithm used to locate possible predefined configuration files. Additionally this section describes the defaults assumed if no external configuration information is supplied.

During startup any HPX application applies a predefined search pattern to locate one or more configuration files. All found files will be read and merged in the sequence they are found into one single internal database holding all configuration properties. This database is used during the execution of the application to configure different aspects of the runtime system.

In addition to the ini files, any application can supply its own configuration files, which will be merged with the configuration database as well. Moreover, the user can specify additional configuration parameters on the command line when executing an application. The HPX runtime system will merge all command line configuration options (see the description of the --hpx::ini, --hpx:config, and --hpx::app-config command line options).